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I watched it and I have to admit, a lot of the stuff he says is true. The cluttered openings and endings really get to me. I couldn't even watched the last part of it because it hurt my eyes so much. gonk

Yeah, I suppose some things are better left to professionals.

God, I hate that so much. gonk I want those people to really straighten out and do it right. But they feel like fansubs are a privilege, so they do a crappy job. What happened to pride?

F is for fansub, F is for fail :'D

XD
You and your one-liners.

I was talking about the series that aren't licensed in this country yet. :XP:

But yeah, I'm gonna just bury the debate. I agree with downloading, a good portion of people here don't. Everybody has their thing.

Most people feel exactly the way that your striked-out sentence states.

But the sad reality of the matter is, a very small portion feel the same way that I do. sad

Hm...I've got a few problems with those videos.

Mostly I think alot of his points are highly opinionated. Personally the amount of clutter involved in fansubs never bothered me much. The overwriting of actual credits with fansub staff is audacious, yes, but I've always had to go to a website to find out who did what on what - anime or not, fansub or otherwise - for anything other than books. Ever think about the possibility that all that clutter might encourage people to abandon the fansub and go grab the DVD? Not saying it's true, just saying it's possible - and that it's something that these videos don't consider.

The points he made about random words being translated or left alone are true enough, but ultimately also opinionated. I've never had a problem with a fansubber choosing words to leave alone, be it from favoritism or policy or anything else. In my opinion fansubs for the most part do this in moderation: it gives a bit more depth to what's being said without me needing to be bi-lingual or have a huge amount of translator's notes. Maybe it's because I just like to learn how certain Japanese words are spelled, but that's just me. His edited examples, on the other hand, take this far out of moderation to the point that it's ridiculous.

I happen to like the translator's notes popping up every so often to explain little tidbits that I might've missed otherwise. I don't know about you but I think it makes things more convenient. Granted, some things are fairly useless trivia, but on the whole it steamlines the process. I've seen fansubs that post their notes at the beginning or end of the show, and as much as I want to pay attention to it I always - and I do mean always - forget the points in the episode to which those notes refer or what they mean. A text file would help, but it'd be more of a hassle to pause the episode, look up the note, read, and go back than to just pause it and read the note that's already there. As much as I understand wanting to watch an anime and not read it, I do prefer that to having to research in order to watch it at all. Am I lazy? Probably.

On that subject I also think his comparisons to popular movies are badly overemphasized. I can't recall a fansub that had translators notes popping up to explain every single unreferenced phrase every other spoken sentence like the way he did his "Last Samurai". Perhaps I'm missing something here, but his Star Wars examples were also poorly chosen and poorly done: he wanted to point out how annoying obtrusive text is over artwork, yes? As I recall, there wasn't any text to explain on that power meter, and I don't remember fansubs doing that when it was clear from context what something was. I have certainly never seen "This is a headstone" on a block of wood that was seemingly unxplained otherwise. I also don't remember a fansub's note taking up a ridiculous portion of the screen in a gigantic font like his "Imperial Senate" example.

Whether or not fansubs are legal or necessary (though, on that topic, how many fansubs do you see stressing that viewers purchase official productions when available? I see alot) or anything else isn't my point: my point is that this "Otaking"'s documentary, while rather put together, really doesn't hold much value. Using professional translators' comments is pretty unfair because, correct me if I'm wrong here, these aren't professionals. Last time I checked there wasn't a particular standard to which fansubbers had to be held accountable as to how they spent their free time. While I have seen some people complain that how an anime was fansubbed ruined or even hampered the viewing this has consistently been a minority and, very frankly, you can't please everyone.

I can't help but think "Oh, boo hoo" to alot of what this guy says, and that impression only strengthens as his documentary goes on.

/twocents

(raggin' fraggin' typos, stupid proofreading, mumble mumble)